Belford High School Responds to Libelous Lawsuit

Belford High School responds to baseless allegations against it, made by the law firm, Googasian P.C. in the class action lawsuit filed on November 5, 2009.

One November 5, 2009 Googasian P.C., filed a lawsuit against Belford High School on behalf of three named plaintiffs (only! out of a body of tens of thousands of Belford students!) alleging that Belford high school was a "sophisticated internet rip-off scheme". In their filing, the law firm Googasian P.C. willfully misrepresented several facts about the Belford High School, choosing to ignore such important documents as Belford's Terms of Service, which essentially defines the client-business relationship in this context. This is our detailed response to the allegations made in the case.

What would be the first thing you'd do if you were a personal injury lawyer about to file a lawsuit against an established institution of learning that had been operating for more than half a decade, had served tens of thousands of students and had an alumni base well positioned in major private and public sector organizations? We reckon you'd gather your horses, do your homework and settle down for a long and hard legal battle.

If you were Googasian P.C. though, a firm of seasoned legal sharks with fresh blood on your fangs from having just made dinner out of an educational institution, well, you'd run a press release.

This is what lawyers do when their objectives aren't essentially to serve justice but to obtain free publicity for themselves at the expense of unassuming clientele and the legal system itself. In the lawsuit filed by Googasian P.C. on November 5, 2009 in a Michigan district court, several baseless claims were made against Belford High School. As we would show you further down this page, these allegations wouldn't stand even the most benign of critical examinations. Legal merit aside, they don't even seem to have any common sense backing them up. For an experienced legal professional to have filed such a frivolous lawsuit would only demonstrate presence of mala fide intentions; intentions other than the ones of winning a case and bringing justice to clients.

We have created this page to respond to the allegations made against Belford in the lawsuit. But more importantly, we have created this page because unlike Googasian, we care about our clientele and because although this case has not managed to disturb our relationship with our clientele even the least bit, we want to allay any concerns our large and very well established base of current and former students may have.

Googasian Claims

The service Belford offers is "illegal

The Fact

We offer diplomas and degrees based on tests and prior learning recognition of individuals. Prior learning assessment is an acceptable process adopted even by Ivy League Universities to give credits to individuals. In USA a large number of Universities and entities even offer 100% credits on the basis of prior learning assessment and work experience. This method is completely legal and hence these entities have been legally operating from within the USA for years. In the USA, it is in fact, even legal to issue novelty diplomas and degrees. It has been established time and again that the operation of all these entities are legal and that they are not committing any fraud of any kind. Hence any international University/college operating in such a manner is entirely legal even according to the US laws.

Googasian Claims

We make false claims about our product and obtain money fraudulently

The Fact

Our terms of service, which Googasian has so insidiously decided to ignore in this case, clearly states that the degrees and diplomas issued are recognition of an individual's work / life experience and the high school makes no guarantees of their acceptability. Under our terms of service students are responsible to validate the acceptability from their institute/organization/jurisdiction. It is a fact that our graduates have seen better prospects when it comes to their education and professional careers nevertheless, nowhere on our website or communications it is claimed that there is any guarantee for a job or admission. Nowhere on the website nor in any communication is it being claimed that we are regionally or nationally accredited by any US accrediting body. Being an international organization we obtained international private accreditation and this is what we have told students everywhere. Googasian has failed to prove where we have claimed regional or national accreditation or accreditation by a body approved by US department of education. They have deliberately avoided placing anything from our website and avoided presenting the terms of service which is central to any contractual relationship between us and the clients.

Googasian Claims

That Belford High School is a "rip-off"

The Fact

Here's a simple fact about online businesses that have to accept payments through credit cards; they cannot afford to "rip-off" their customers on a long term basis, as under the credit card rules the customer can simply file a chargeback and get his/her money back by disputing the transaction with the bank on various grounds. The banks and especially the third party billing companies like PayPal etc. are extremely stringent and do not tolerate greater than 1-2% chargeback rate. If we have been in operations for six years and given that almost 100% of our business transactions are online through third party billing, our client dissatisfaction ratio has to be less than 2%. This is contrary to the plaintiffs' claim that we have ripped off majority of our customers. Furthermore, we have a customer-centric refund policy which aims at minimizing any dissatisfaction. Googasian P.C. acknowledges so much when they state that we have a fax number we use process refunds. We keep meticulous record of customer dispute resolution and have no record of any attempts made by the named Plaintiffs to obtain refunds. Simply put, if we were a "rip-off" we wouldn't have been in the business until now. And Googasian would have found a few more than just three former students to go with his scheme to rip-off Belford.